Emanuels blog

Socially Responsible Investing (SRI)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 16:04:00 +0000

Here is my latest prezi about Socially Responsible Investment.
Its from a presentation i gave in my class yesterday.

enjoy!

Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) on Prezi

My speaking notes:

Intro:

Have you heard about SRI?

Do you think SRI is important?

Did you, in the investment game, screen your stocks with SRI values?

Why?

Why not?

There is a wide believe out there, that SRI brings back lower returns, is more risky or less attractive for investors. I will try to prove the opposite.

Video

Def:

Socially responsible investing (SRI), also known as sustainable, socially conscious, green or ethical investing, is any investment strategy which seeks to consider both financial return and social good.

What are your personal values?

What do you believe in?

Do you believe in peace, abundance, community?

Or in war, scarcity and dictatorship?

What would you rather want your money to support?

Weapons solar panels

mass murder community

oil spills - nature

Creation myth:

Quakers:

Who knows these guys?

Quakers?

Quakers “invented” sRi in the 1758 cause a doctrine told them they where “prohibited members from participating in the slave trade–buying or selling humans.“

Modern:

In the 1960’s, due to the political climate, increasingly sought to address equality for women, civil rights, and labor issues.

Economic development projects started or managed by Dr. Martin Luther King, like the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Operation Breadbasket Project] in Chicago, established the beginning model for socially responsible investing efforts

1950s and 1960s, trade unions started investing pension funds

SRI had an important role in causing ending the apartheid government in South Africa

Since the late 1990s, SRI has become increasingly defined as a means to promote environmentally sustainable development

GROWTH

Socially responsible investing is a booming market in both the US and Europe. Assets in socially screened portfolios climbed to $3.07 trillion at the start of 2010, a 34% increase since 2005

From 2007-2010 alone, SRI assets increased more than 13%, while professionally-managed assets overall increased less than 1%

So what does SRI do?

What are the approaches investors typically utilize in SRI?

Screening

evaluating investment portfolios or mutual funds based on social, environmental and good corporate governance criteria.

Screening may involve including strong corporate social responsibility (CSR) performers, avoiding poor performers, or otherwise incorporating CSR factors into the process of investment analysis and management. Generally, sutainable and responsible investors seek to own profitable companies that make positive contributions to society. "Buy" lists may include enterprises with, for example, good employer-employee relations, strong environmental practices, products that are safe and useful, and operations that respect human rights around the world.

Shareholder advocacy

sustainable and responsible investors who take an active role as the owners of corporate America.

These efforts include talking (or "dialoguing") with companies on issues of social, environmental or governance concerns. Shareholder advocacy also frequently involves filing, and co-filing shareholder resolutions on such topics as corporate governance, climate change, political contributions, gender/racial discrimination, pollution, problem labor practices and a host of other issues. Shareholder resolutions are then presented for a vote to all owners of a corporation.

Community Investing

directs capital from investors and lenders to communities that are underserved by traditional financial services institutions.

Community investing provides access to credit, equity, capital, and basic banking products that these communities would otherwise lack. In the US and around the world, community investing makes it possible for local organizations to provide financial services to low-income individuals and to supply capital for small businesses and vital community services, such as affordable housing, child care, and healthcare

How many assets are involved in SRI?

US SIF's 2010 Report on Socially Responsible Investing Trends identified $3.07 trillion in total assets

How many SRI mutual funds are there?

2010, there were 250 socially screened mutual fund products in the US

What is the fastest growing area of SRI?

Community investing

Over the past three years, community investing has grown over 60-percent, from $25.0 billion to $41.7 billion in assets.

Performance and SRI Investment

FTSE KLD 400 with returns of 9.51

8.66 percent for the S&P 500

domini 400:

1. Approximately 250 companies in the S&P 500
2. 100 companies not in the S&P 500, but providing sector diversification and exceeding pre-determined market cap limitations
3. 50 companies that have shown excellence in their social and environmental dealings

Coca Cola seeks "corporate green washer"

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 18:39:00 +0000

Since I'll be graduating soon, I've been browsing through jobs in the area of business and sustainability.
One of my favorites so far was Coca Cola's Job description for a "Sustainability and Stakeholder Relations Manager"

Sounds interesting - right?
Seems to me though, that this is a job only looking to "green wash" Coca Colas initiatives.

from: http://development.thinkaboutit.eu/think3/
post/google_search_of_the_day_coca_cola_greenwashing

Here are some Highlights found in the Job description:

The SSR Communications Manager is responsible for ensuring that the planning, development and delivery of the CCR Sustainability story is told to key media, associates and stakeholders across the country. (so far so good)

* Community and Special Interest Groups: Knowledge of community and special interest groups (e.g., objectives, leadership, methods) that have the potential to impact the Company's business or operating environment. Includes ability to influence these groups on behalf of the Company.
(influencing communities on behalf of the company - well... that sounds genuine...)

* Government Relations: Knowledge of how government is structured and understanding of how public policy decisions are made and implemented. Includes ability to communicate effectively with politicians.
(communicate effectively with politicians... well... lobbying would be the better word)

* Crisis Management: Knowledge of procedures used and ability to rapidly mobilize and manage internal and external resources to deal with situations that have the potential for severe negative impact on the Company's reputation or business.

* Work with Product Supply, Region Teams and AHL PAC colleagues to provide early-warning system and internal/external communications strategy and messages for potential negative issues.

The hole description can be found here:

http://www.amightyriver.com/job-search/sustainability-and-stakeholder-relations-manager.5533147.html?from=SimplyHired&utm_source=SimplyHired&utm_medium=jobboard&utm_campaign=SimplyHired

interested?

good luck, and let me know how it turns out!!

Certified B Corps and Benefit Corporations

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 16:41:00 +0000

B Corp Certification

B corp on Prezi

About B-Corporations

What is a B Corp?
According to Inc. magazine, the B Corp movement started in 2007 and was founded by 81 companies that all looked for alternative ways to make business differently then the traditional for-profit model (Brown, 2011)#. [you may either footnote or use the in-line citation system; you should not use both at the same time.]
The Vision of the Certification is to find and certify corporations that use the power of business to solve social and environmental problems
B-Corps are privately certified through the non-profit B-Labs, which certifies B Corporations according to the website if they meet requirements in three areas:

Meet comprehensive and transparent social and environmental performance standards

Meet higher legal standards

Build business constituency for public policies that support sustainable business

As of now, there are about 500 certified B Corporations in 60 different areas of business. The impact of these companies can be seen through their publicly available B Impact Report with data about the social and environmental practices.

Who sets the standard?
B-Labs aims to redefine the purpose of a business by creating business communities and market infrastructure where people can distinguish between businesses that are “good” and businesses that simply have good marketing (greenwashing?).

They emphasize empowering entrepreneurs and the stakeholders of their businesses so they can stand for something positive.

According to their website, there are three things they do for companies to systematically bring change and create a new business sector:

Build a community of Certified B Corporations to distinguish between good companies and good marketing

Use their GIIRS Ratings & Analytics to accelerate impact investing asset class growth

Promote legislation that creates a structure for higher business standards

(Source: http://www.bcorporation.net/The-Non-Profit-behind-B-Corps)

Who is involved in developing or modifying the standard, and by what procedure is the standard developed or modified?

The certification is done partially by the business itself and partially by B-Labs staff members. They continuously improve their assessments with feedback and lessons learned through practice. (source:http://blog.southern-energy.com/index.php/sem-triple-bottom-line/b-corp-assessment-take-2/)

A three step process is needed for a business to get their B-Corp certification and is mentioned on the B-Labs website:

The business needs to get a minimum of 80 points out of 200 on the B Impact assessment. This assessment will be reviewed by a B-Labs staff member
The business must adopt the legal framework provided by B-Labs to align its values with other B Corporations.
The business must sign a term sheet and a declaration of interdependence to make it official

(source:http://www.bcorporation.net/Certification-Overview)

After receiving the certification, B-Labs will do an on-site evaluation on 20% of the certified B-Corps over a two year term.

Who are the evaluators and who accredits them?

Most of the evaluating is done in-house by B-Labs themselves, so the evaluators are B-Labs staff and [are accredited by other B-Labs accreditors] - [no, just say that they are trained by B-Labs. There is no accreditation process in the B-Corp system].

Training of Audit Staff and Consultants

The B Corp website lists a plethora of of consultants who are not trained by B-Labs for consulting but are B corp certified themselves.

[“certified” is the wrong word, because that applies to a corporation. In the text, I said “credentialed” to refer to what a person gets when they are trained to act as an auditor or consultant] Can you say more about the extent of training given to people in order to get a credential from B-Labs? Is there a name to that credential?

(source: http://www.bcorporation.net/index.cfm/fuseaction/serviceArea.detail?id=739f6273-bedf-43da-ad71-990aa02407df) Businesses can also ask for help from B-Labs at any point in the certification process.

Legislative Component

B-Lab, the company behind the B Corps, also works parallel with many states within the United States to lobby for a legal change, to create a legal “Benefit Corporation”.
Even though B Corps [? do you mean B-Lab rather than B Corps?] and Benefit Corporations have very much in common, they are essentially independent from each other. Certified B Corps are certified independently by the non profit B-Lab. (source:http://www.bcorporation.net/publicpolicy)
Benefit corporations are not certified but have legal requirements of corporate purpose, accountability, and transparency (B Lab)#. [you already said this]
Benefit Corporations legally meet higher standards of corporate purpose, accountability and transparency. According to the website, there are 3 main factors: [this too is repetitive]

Purpose: have a corporate purpose to create a material positive impact on society and the environment;
Accountability: expand fiduciary duty to require consideration of the interests of workers, community and the environment; and
Transparency: publicly report annually on overall social and environmental performance against a comprehensive, credible, independent, and transparent third party standard.

(source: http://www.bcorporation.net/publicpolicy )

Benefit Corporations are legally established in 7 states (California, Hawaii, New York, Virginia, Maryland, Vermont, and New Jersey) and pending in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Washington. (source: http://www.benefitcorp.net/state-by-state-legislative-status)
B Lab seems to be the driving force behind the legislative changes, and seems to be lobbying in all states in the USA to get Benefit Corporations legislation.

According to the website, the benefits of becoming a benefit corporations are:

Provide clarity to directors and officers that their fiduciary duty includes creating a material positive impact on society and the environment, even in liquidity/sale scenarios;
Offer legal protection to directors and officers to consider the non-financial interests of their workforce, community, and the environment when making decisions, even in liquidity/sale scenarios;
Help maintain mission over time by 1) expanding shareholder rights to enforce this expanded definition of fiduciary duty and standard of consideration; and 2) requiring a 2/3 super-majority vote of shareholders to remove these higher standards; and 3) providing the opportunity to name and enforce pursuit of one or more specific public benefit purposes;
Create a marketing opportunity to differentiate the business as a new class of corporation required by law to benefit society as well as shareholders.

[this is a very interesting part of your report. Can you say more about this. What does the state legislation say? Does it say that a company must be certified by B-Labs to get this protection, or does it say that a company must meet certain conditions (if so, what are they?) to qualify for the legal protection?

Corporate Sustainability – The holy grail of capitalism?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:49:00 +0000

Here is another part of my academic career. This paper was for my "organizational change for sustainability" class. I am only posting the Intro, the first part of my paper and my personal notes, because the main part is only a summary of the book: Organizational Change for Corporate Sustainability: A Guide for Leaders and Change Agents of the Future, by Dexter Dunphy, Andrew Griffiths, Suzanne Benn (http://www.amazon.com/Organizational-Change-Corporate-Sustainability-Understanding/dp/0415393299/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1329237665&sr=8-2)

have fun reading :)

Introduction:

Sustainability has become one of the biggest trends worldwide over the last 30 years. Waking up to the reality of our problems a lot of people demand “more sustainability” from corporations, government and society as a whole. Many corporations jumped on this train and started to look at how they could change and adapt their business practices to be more sustainable in their actions.

The Holy Grail, similar to sustainability now, plays a different role everywhere it appears. In most versions of the legend the hero must prove himself worthy to be in its presence. In the early tales, Percival's immaturity prevents him from fulfilling his destiny when he first encounters the Grail, and he must grow spiritually and mentally before he can locate it again. In a later telling the Grail is a symbol of God's grace, available to all but only fully realized by those who prepare themselves spiritually, like the saintly Galahad.

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Grail)

The Sustainability Phase Model

In their introduction, Dunphy, Griffiths and Benn pose the question of whether corporations are evil. They argue that it would be simplistic and naïve to portray corporations as evil by nature, but that it is important to “exercise collective control over the way in which they operate”. Thus it is important to define their role within society, their social and environmental responsibility, and their accountability. They think that “the core of this debate can be summarized as the argument about whether the role of the corporation is simply to create financial wealth for its owners, or to contribute to the well-being of a wider range of stakeholders, including the community, the environment and future generations.”

(p. 7, 8)

The Authors present a phase model to make comparisons between organizations and their commitment and practice towards sustainability. The model also describes a set of steps that organizations take in progressing to sustainability.

These steps are:

· Rejection

· Non-responsiveness

· Compliance

· Efficiency

· Strategic proactivity

· The sustaining corporation

All phases are described in terms of their attitudes towards human sustainability and ecological sustainability. This gives the reader an idea of the journey an organization theoretically goes through, on its way to more sustainable practice.

Figure 1: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/content_images/fig/0430230105001.png

1. Rejection
Employees and subcontractors are regarded as a resource that can be exploited and the environment is regarded as a free good to be exploited. Pro environmental action is seen as a threat to the organization.

2. Non-Responsiveness
Financial and technological factors dominate business strategies to the exclusion of most human resource management. The ecological environment is not considered to be a relevant factor in strategic or operational decisions. Environmental risks, costs, opportunities and imperatives are seen as irrelevant or are not perceived at all.

3. Compliance
The emphasis is on compliance with legal requirements in industrial relations, safety, workplace standards, and so on. Financial and technological factors dominate business strategies, but the company seeks to comply with environmental laws to minimize the firm’ potential liabilities from actions that have adverse impact on the environment.

4. Efficiency
There is a systematic attempt to integrate human resource functions into a coherent HR system to reduce costs and increase efficiency. Poor environmental practice is seen as an important source of avoidable costs.

5. Strategic Proactivity
Skill mix and diversity are seen as integral and vitally important aspects for the business, and intellectual and social capital are used to develop strategic advantage through innovation. Proactive environmental strategies supporting ecological sustainability are seen as strategic business opportunities to provide competitive advantage. The organization seeks competitive leadership through spearheading environmentally friendly products and processes.

6. The sustaining corporation
The organization accepts responsibility for contributing to the process of renewing and upgrading human knowledge and skill formation in the community and society as a whole and is a strong promoter of equal opportunity, workplace diversity and work-life balance as workplace principles. The organization becomes an active promoter of ecological sustainability values and seeks to influence key participants in the industry and society in general. Nature is valued for its own sake.
(p. 24-26)

.....

Personal Note

Writing this paper was extremely hard for me, for reasons that I cannot really explain. There is some kind of inner blockage that is hindering me to accept the reality the authors are creating. Even though their model seems to be logical and they obviously have enough experience to showcase their points, there is still something wrong for me. Something on an intuitive level is telling me that this is not working. Even though I am aware that this book is geared towards a specific market of corporate CEOs and change agents, and I fully recognize the good intentions behind it, I strongly believe that it is not going far enough.

It seems to me that their belief that the system can be changed in an incremental way, which is what their model seems to describe, does not work. It seems that the fundamental beliefs that build their logic will not hold up. Their model still lies on the assumption of infinite growth, a basic and fundamental problem within the capitalist system. There is no such thing as infinite growth, and therefore every competitive system that is based on this assumption, whether it is integrating sustainability or not, is doomed to fail in the long term.

The second logical flaw is the assumption that at the heart of every business lays profit. The idea of profit has created a mousetrap in which our current system is trapping itself. By looking for profits, we forget to see what the original purpose of business is. The creation of value for the greater good is the real, original purpose for business. Looking back thousands of years, groups gathered together to create things of value that could not be created by one person alone, to generate more value for the greater good of everyone. If this seems altruistic, or unrealistic to you, imagine living in a tribe in the jungle, and creating a field to grow crops so that everyone in the tribe could eat and prosper. Now imagine the whole world being this tribe.

It might seem like a good idea to try and change the system. It might seem like its worth the time and energy to look at the existing model and see where you can change it, tweak it and adapt it. If you take a step back though, you will see that this system has brought itself to a point where little changes, and lofty visions are not enough anymore. The incremental path of change is over. This system needs drastic change, and that is what is missing in their book: The boldness to propose changes that are outside of what exists right now. In the words of Buckminster Fuller: "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

We are at a point where we need a new model, one that is not based on the assumptions of infinite growth, exploitation of the environment and the generation of profit as the central motivation. A model that takes into account the inherent drive of humans for good, that acknowledges that we are all in this together, and that the biggest goals are to create a world worth living for everyone on this planet. This certainly is not going to happen by slowly transforming corporations into sustainable corporations, because the only thing they “sustain” is their inherent need for profit and exploitation.

It seems to me like we are in a very similar situation as it was in France at the time of the French revolution, where it was not enough to change and adopt the system. A new system needed to be created, to replace the old one. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years. French society underwent an epic transformation as feudal, aristocratic and religious privileges evaporated under a sustained assault from radical political groups, masses on the streets, and peasants in the countryside. Old ideas about tradition and hierarchy – of monarchy, aristocracy and religious authority - were abruptly overthrown by new Enlightenment principles of equality, citizenship and inalienable rights. This process went on for the next 50 years, going back and forth in a power struggle between democracy and monarchy, but finally ended in the establishment of the first modern democracy in Europe. Even thought this process caused a lot of pain, suffering and death, it liberated the world and caused the next level of evolution for mankind.

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution)

I believe that we are at a very similar point of time. This society needs to reinvent itself and completely transform into something new; shed the old skin of corporate capitalism and be reborn in a new form. We can see now the initiation of this shift, with economists predicting the break down of our current model, people demonstrating on streets and public spaces all over the world and scholars creating new models of existence. I don’t know how this model is going to look, but if we are to survive, it has to be radically different from what we currently have. The ideas range from global non-monetary, resource based economies to small community self-sufficiency, to spiritual enlightenment theories. It seems that, like Perceval, the corporate world, in its quest to find the holy grail of profit and sustainability, does not dare to ask the right question, and therefore is doomed to fail.

Social Justice in the light of Integral Theory and SpIral Dynamics

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 16:18:00 +0000

so, i have not published anything here in a long time, but now i've something new to share.
these are my notes of the presentation i gave in my social justice class about "Integral Theory, Spiral Dynamics, and Social Justice".
In this presentation i try to have a look at Racism from the point of few of Spiral Dynamics and Integral Theory.

So, here it is:

Suppose we took everything that all the various world cultures have to tell us about human potential and the world around us, about psychological, and social growth, about science, religion and spirituality.

What if we tried to identify the basic patterns that connect these pieces of knowledge? What If we tried to create a map that touches on all these important factors.

Before getting into this, I want to make sure: this is just a map. Its not the territory. Don’t confuse the map. Don’t think by looking at the map, you know the territory. But also, if you go on a road trip, you’d rather have a map with you, cause otherwise you might never get to where you want to get.

Integral theory is a framework that tries to integrate different ways of knowledge, from ancient sages to modern science and put it in one model.

Integral theory sees that there is different states of consciousness that we are on (waking, dreaming, sleeping), it takes into account that there is different levels of development (example:preconventional = egocentric; conventional=ethnocentric; post conventional = worldcentric) that there is different lines of development (cognitive, interpersonal, emotional, moral, psychosexual), and that there is at least a masculine and a feminine aspect to everything.

One main framework that integral theory works with a 4-quadrant model.

Every mayor language has, what we call 1^st 2^nd and 3^rd person pronouns.

If I am speaking to you about my bike. There is the “I”, the you and the it.

You and I together form the “we”

So, you can look at every event from the point of view of “I” (how I personally feel about it)

From the “WE”, how not just I, but all of us see the event

And from the “IT” – the objective facts of events.

The 4 perspectives with which you can look at every occasion are:

I – top left- inside of individual – individual thoughts, feelings, sensations, (everything 1^st person)

It – top right - outside of individual – physical individual: my cells, organs, but also my physical behavior, the way I dress.

When inside is feelings, outside sees a limbic system, when inside has desires, the outside sees the neurocortex,

Inside is the subjective, outside the objective, and both of them are right according to integral approach.

We – bottom left - inside of collective – group consciousness, our culture,

Its – bottom right - outside of collective – social dimension – how we manifest culture, the infrastructure we build, etc.

All 4 of these quadrants need to be included if you want to be as integral as possible, and all 4 of those show growth, development and evolution.

One model that is often used together with integral theory is a developmental model called “spiral dynamics”.

Spiral dynamics is a framework for understanding different value systems. First formulated by Dr. Clare Graves and put into a book by Don Beck and Christopher Cowan.

It gives a way of understanding human differences without the invalid cathegories of race or class, and a language to describe differences that transcend superficial categories.

4 key points to his theory:

1. Human nature is not static, nor is it finite. Human nature changes as the conditions of existence change.

2. When a new system or level is activated, we change our psychology and rules for living to adapt to those new conditions.

3. We live in a potentially open system of values with an infinite number of modes of living available to us. There is no final state to which we must all aspire.

4. An individual, a company, or an entire society can respond positively only to those managerial principles, motivational appeals, educational formulas, and legal or ethical codes that are appropriate to the current level of human existence" (Beck and Cowan 1996).

So, what does all of this have to do with racism?

Purple: survival of family, tribe, clan, preserve our kind, stranger and outsider is feared, not trusted, gender and age roles are rigid and important.

Examples: urban gangs, KKK, white supremacy groups, Mafia

Red: centers on power, appearance, territorial and personal dominance, self serving, often violent, brutal, , focus on power, conquest, expression of power,

Examples: intra racial gang violence, inter ethnic conflicts, protest marches

Blue: racism as a social construct to maintain segregation, division. Uses polarized thinking (us/them), rigid cathegories, classes, crusades, traditions. Uses “holy books” and “the law” to justify unequal behavior. Rules for proper behavior, seeks to keep things as they are. Flags, hymns, etc

Examples: U.S before&during Civil rights movement until now, Apartheid before mandela, conservative groups

Orange: seeks competitive advantage, achievement, vies for economic niches, avoids racism and sexism, even plays down racial and ethnic heritage for success, focuses on strategies, free markets, status. Is only inclusive if benefits bottomline.

Examples: anti affirmative laws, corporate America

Green: at this level racism is reactionary, can be exclusive and intolerant, social action missionaries who use discrimination to enforce equality. Egalitarianism based on denial of differences. Focuses on equality, community, feelings, earthiness, consensus, and human harmony.

Examples: Politically Correct movement, Anti racism groups,

The article suggests that racism is only truly overcome in the second tier, because at that stage competence is overriding differences.

Read quote:

3 modes for change:

1. Bureaucratic model (top down): addressing institutional structures of exclusion.
Primary way of success: work through institutions that perpetuate learning of racism: family, schools, church, workplace, government.

2. Grassroots model (bottom up): create systems of greater equality, create contact between different groups, reducing socioeconomic competition, and status inequality, example: civil rights movement.

3. Heart Model (inside out): focus on internal transformation through heart/mind/spirit: “finding, nurturing, and creating conditions that promote care” combined with internal transformation of value systems

Sources:
The Integral Vision: A Very Short Introduction to the Revolutionary Integral Approach to Life, God, the Universe, and Everything by Ken Wilber (Aug 14, 2007)

THE MULTIPLE FUTURES OF RACISM—BEYOND THE MYTH OF RACE THROUGH A NEW PARADIGM FOR RESOLUTION IN THE THIRD MILLENNIUM By Caleb Rosado, Ph.D. http://www.rosado.net/pdf/Futures_of_Racism.pdf

Ecofair feedback

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 10 May 2011 19:28:00 +0000

here is another article that got written about EcoFair:
from: http://www.mum.edu/achievements/2011_04_29.html

Students mingle at the Job and Internship Fair

A group of students plant fruit trees on campus

Visitors enjoy a local food workshop

Jens Butler demonstrates blacksmithing

11th Annual EcoFair Celebrates Sustainability

The 11th Annual MUM EcoFair held on the weekend of April 15th, celebrated the successes and strategies that are making the world a greener place. The student-organized event, “Energize Metamorphosis to Sustainability,” included visiting speakers, workshops, vendors, and the EcoJam fashion show. New this year was the Green Job and Internship Fair, allowing employers in the area of sustainability to connect with students for employment and internships.

The event opened with keynote speaker Julie Woods, social entrepreneur, corporate trainer, and executive director of Fun Money Good: FMG Magazine for a Global Tribe.

Her interactive keynote speech “Bridges Not Battles: Sustainability Success in a World That Doesn’t Know It Cares… YET!” targeted nuts-and-bolts paradigms, tools, and techniques for furthering the reach of sustainability initiatives.

Featured speeches included “Growing Green Jobs in a Green Economy” by Kevin Doyle, author of three books about environmental careers. In addition, Richard Kahn, core education faculty at Antioch University, Los Angeles, gave a talk titled “Ecopedagogy: Memory, Mind, Movement, Metamorphosis.”

“It was a really great time,” said Dr. Kahn. “I wish I had more time to talk to everyone and learn more about the curriculum. MUM couldn't have been a better host and I will only have good things to report in my various travels.”

Local speakers included Kim Strubell of Caritas Seeds, who spoke on "Sustainable Agriculture in Africa,” and Stuart Valentine, co-chair of the Sustainable Living Coalition, who led a panel discussion on green capital.

MUM alumnus Robbie Gongwer showed his short documentary, titled "Sustain Angoon," about the introduction of sustainable energy technologies by MUM students, alumni, and faculty in a remote village in Alaska. In addition, several Maharishi School students presented their award-winning science fair projects in the area of sustainability.

The EcoFair also offered a large number of workshops on topics such as tree planting, permaculture gardens, biodynamic farming, edible landscapes, blacksmithing, and controlling electrical pollution.

“EcoFair this year was a great success,” said organizer Emanuel Schachinger. “We had the best turnout in the 11-year history of the event.”

MUM has been a leader in sustainability education with its rapidly growing undergraduate program in Sustainable Living.

Ecofair 2011 - summary

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 18:43:00 +0000

Here is my short summary of Ecofair 2011, i had to write for my internship :)

Internship Summary:

Description:

During the 2 weeks of the internship I focused on the organization of the event "EcoFair". My position as a head organizer included the following responsibilities:

- group Leadership

- marketing

- budget

- action planning

- volunteer organization

- speaker organization

- debrief and set up for next year

Organization for EcoFair started in September 2010 with an initial visioning process that resulted in the main theme, the vision, the group agreements and the formation of a 15 person core team. This core team continued meeting weekly since September until the event started.

My position of head organizer included the leadership during these meetings, writing and following the agenda, upholding group agreements and supporting the team leaders in their efforts.

Group leadership:

during the whole year, a big part of my position was leadership within the group Taking and sharing responsibility, holding members and myself accountable for agreements and sometimes taking a strong position with the group where the most challenging parts for me.

Marketing:

during the 2 weeks of my internship, one of the most important parts was the short term marketing for the event. Since it was 3 weeks before the event, we focused on easy accomplishable strategies. Our media mix included online media (facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mumecofair, website: http://mumecofair.org/), newspaper (inlay in "the Source", articles in the "Fairfield legder", "the review", and other neswpapers), Radio (KRUU spots + interviews, KHOE interview, KMCD interview, http://www.exploreseiowa.com/pages/7361464.php, and others), Newsletter (information got sent out through: Bob Fergusons newsletter, The Chamber of Commerce, MUM newsletter, IA newsletter, Bill Pollacks newsletter, CVB newsletter, ASHII newsletter, and many others) as well as poster presence (3 types of posters put up on MUM campus, in fairfield, Ottumwa, Iowa City, Des Moines, etc) as well as flyer's in the fairfield area)

My job here was the organization of these efforts and the distribution of advertisement material.

Another important aspect of marketing was the networking aspect, which means being present at various meetings, inviting leadership members of the community to cooperate with us (Francis Thicky, Stuart Valentine, Bob Ferguson, Troy van Beek, Amy Greenfield, and many others)

Budget:

one main part for me, was to create a budget, make sure that it people stick to it, and to keep an overview of our income and expenses. A short version of the budget is attached.

The biggest challenge with the budget was the insecurity of incomes and expenses. Since i did not have any experiences with events like this, it was very challenging for me to come up with a realistic budget. I used last years budget and adopted it to our needs and it turned out to be pretty accurate, even though our expenses where increasing and increasing and finally we end up with a small loss.

Action planning:

during the 2 weeks of my internship i spend a good amount of time organizing the more then 30 volunteers, we had 3 volunteer meetings where people could sign up for volunteer positions and get more info about where they could plug in. My head organizer for volunteers, Minca Borg, did a great job, and i supported her with all volunteer efforts. Further action planning included the creation of the final schedule, the reservation of all rooms, the planning for speaker needs and requirements, the coordination with the university and concrete planning of all needs for every event.

Volunteer organization:

as explained earlier, a big portion of the work went into organizing volunteers, and coordinating the efforts of everybody willing to help. To incentivize volunteering we cooperated with the local initiative "Hometown Hero Rewards Program" to distribute rewards to our volunteers, as well as we gave out free tickets and T-Shirts for volunteers.

Speaker Organization:

for all the out of town speakers I organized the booking, the contracting, the payment, the travel arrangements (booking flights, hotel rooms, organizing drivers for the weekend), as well as the check in, the presentation requirements, etc. This was the most expensive part of the event, since we payed about 6500 dollars for speakers, transportation and accommodation.

Debrief and set up:

since the event is over, we had 2 debriefing sessions with the team, where we went through the event, and looked at what had worked and what did not work. These notes will be handed over to next years organizing team, as well as booklet with the most important information from every team leader.

Furthermore we started planning the initial visioning process for next years EcoFair, which will be held in about 4 weeks and we hope that students and comunity leaders will participate and share their ideas for next years EcoFair.

Here you can find pictures of this years ecofair:

http://www.facebook.com/mumecofair?sk=photos

Here is a rather funny news clip about ecofair:

http://www.heartlandconnection.com/news/story.aspx?id=606249

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 19:12:00 +0000

Happiness

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 19:50:00 +0000

The third story i wrote last week, and probably the craziest one, portraying the transformation that we can go through... The task was to use 5 phrases that we came up in class with and construct a story around them.
the 5 phrases were:
a green bottle
the stomp of an oak tree
1980 VW rabbit
blue eyed child
yoga matt
9mm pistol
one dirty hippie

thanks jess for helping me typing it ;)

Happiness

Sitting on the stump of an old oak tree next to his house, the old man enjoyed the silence and cool breeze of this late summer morning. He enjoyed sitting here alone, with the silence and the peace. Sharing this morning only with the gossip of the starlings in the trees and the smiles of the flowers around him. The simplicity of this life gave him many pleasures, joy, and fulfillment. He imagined his wife inside doing her daily routine on the old blue yoga mat. The Asanas kept them both young and fit, though he allowed himself to skip out on them from time to time. Like today. This morning was just too beautiful to be spent inside, so he came out and decided to just sit here and listen to nature. Life was joy.
But it had not always been like that. It’s been a long journey. Suddenly all those memories came up again, and even though he had made peace with his past, a slightly unpleasant tension came up in his chest every time he thought about it.

It must have been 50 years ago. Maybe even 60. He was in his 20’s. The “prime of his life.” At least, that’s what he thought back then. He had just gotten his first well-paid job, the director of graphic design in a highly successful, young, advertising agency. His work was to brief the designer’s on projects and be the interface between the account manager guys and the graphic nerds. He loved his job. The challenges. The money. And even though he worked 80+ hours, he enjoyed the freedom and status that came with this money. He and his new friends enjoyed their new life. Their slogan was “Work hard - Party hard.” And so it was. Alcohol, girls, never-ending parties, and always some cocaine to get a clear head in the morning.

It must have been a Sunday morning. Probably around 5, because the street cleaners were out when he drove his shining, red, 1980 convertible VW Rabbit back home. It had been another one of those long party nights and he just wanted to get home to take a quick shower, get some fresh clothes, a quick line to clear his head, and drive back to the office to work on some of the projects.

A sudden thump kicked him out of his thoughts. He must have hit something. He stopped his car, adrenaline pumping throughout his body, clearing his head. It must have been a cat, maybe a dog. Maybe one of those cougars. Anyways, he wanted to see if it was still alive. Pulling back his car he saw something moving in the shadow of the sidewalk. “That’s it,” he thought. He stopped, got out of the car, and ran to the sidewalk. “Oh my god,” he thought. There was a bundle of clothes, blond hair, and a lot of blood. Shocked, he turned the bloody head around and looked into the dead blue eyes of a child. A child, maybe 7, maybe 8 years old. Obviously homeless. Thoughts flashing through his head, “nobody will miss it - nobody will even know it’s gone - nobody had taken care of it anyways - maybe it was even for the best - saved it from a life of poverty and despair.”

Beep. Beep. Beep. The alarm clock. His head hurts. The sunlight stings his eyes. What time is it? 7. What day? Thursday. Why was his alarm ringing? He had not gone to work in 2 weeks. Since that morning. Even though everything went well, the cops still had not called. Nothing in the newspapers or on the TV indicated that a child was even missing. But the dead blue eyes. Every time he closed his eyes, there they were. Looking back at him. These little, blue, dead eyes. Just looking at him. He looked around his apartment. It was filthy, dirty, fucked up. Clothes everywhere on the black designer chairs. Empty green bottles of cheap whiskey on the table and the floor. Empty pizza boxes and the remains of cocaine on the glass table. The TV playing a random sitcom.

Suddenly it becomes clear to him. They would find him. It could never be like before. His life was over. He made a decision.

He got up, threw on some jeans and a sweater, a short line of cocaine to get the head-ace away, and walked out. He knew exactly where to go. His heart started to beat faster as he got closer. Sweating, excited, he opened the door and looked around. It took a few seconds for his eyes to get adjusted to the darkness. A dirty old hippie stood behind the counter. He kept on looking. The shop looked almost as filthy as his apartment. Neon lights brightened the displays. He looked around searching for the right one. “This one,” he said. Without words, the hippie took the silver 9mm pistol out of the display and brought it to the counter. He started to feel nervous and sweat again. Was this really the only way out? Was there no other choice? His cheeks tightened. No. He had fucked up. Time to pay the consequences. The hippie stood behind the counter. Suddenly he didn’t look dirty anymore. He looked older. Very old, and somehow wise. He looked into the young man’s eyes. Just looked with warm understanding eyes.

“If you seek forgiveness, you will find it inside you. If you seek happiness outside, all you will find is suffering and pain. Seek it inside you, and you will find peace and salvation. Take the pistol now and find suffering, or come with me and I will teach you how to find happiness inside.”

The young man stared at the old hippie. Tears streaming down his face. It was the first time he had cried in years. It was the first step he took to salvation.

Sitting on the stump of the oak tree, the old man smiled. He had never figured out why that hippie was in the gun store and how he knew exactly what to say. But he does know that if the hippie had not said those exact words, he would killed himself that day.

The last experiment

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 18:05:00 +0000

As promised, another story of my narrative class.
This time, we had to write a "creation myth" on how the world, or mankind got into existence. I tried to think outside the box and chose a more "sci-fi" approach. The point being: "life is precious - don't waste it"

The last experiment

Deeply worried he went over the data analysis again. All the work - for nothing? All his life he had been working on this project and now it looked like it would fail again. Fail like the millions of other experiments he did.
He was running out of time. Time - this fragile concept. He always thought that there was no such concept as time. But he could sense it - now. It was time for him to leave soon. He - the last of his kind. For the longest part he thought time would cease to exist once you leave your physical body behind; but here it was again - sneaking up from the back, telling him to leave.
But before he could go he had to make sure it would continue. It could not just stop with him. Life had to to continue.
The experiment, it sounded so simple, so easy, so well designed. Find a sheltered planet, inject some of the basic DNA, wait until the lifeforms develop and could support more complex organisms. Inject the next stage of complexity, let it spread and develop, wait. The final stage was to inject higher DNA that was capable of creating awareness; DNA like the one his own body used to have.
And then - wait. Wait for it to develop from the simple beginnings into powerful minds that where capable of higher thinking, communication and arts, and finally would be able to exist without the basic body. For the experiment he chose small, sheltered suns in the outside of galaxies, with planets that move around them thousands of times in a blink of his mind.
But something went wrong. The experiment never worked. From the nine million two hundred and eighty one thousand five hundred and fifty three planets he had seeded only one had survived. And it was always the same story. The intelligent life-form, after being injected to the sphere, first adopts very well to the planet. It starts creating symbiotic relationships with already existing lower lifeforms, creates patterns that allow for survival on the planet and strategies to work with the given environment. The lifeforms start creating higher functioning, communication, social structures, technologies, and art. But at some point, on every planet, the intelligent species starts growing like a virus, infecting and destroying all the eco-systems on the planet, and killing everything before reaching the final stage of evolution - the point of unmanifest being.
Only one planet left. There was not much chance for survival. And the signs were bad. The species had started growing exponentially in a very short period of time. Like on all the other planets, they started destroying the Eco-system, infecting and polluting everything and abusing and destroying the very planet that nurtured them, leaving no resources for future generations.
The signs were bad.
Only a miracle could help to continue.
But there was still hope. Some of the objects showed significant strong levels of higher thinking. Some showed signs of connection to the unmanifest. Signs he had never seen before on any other planet.
Maybe this one would survive.

What did you leave behind

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 15:22:00 +0000

I am in a narrative class right now and therefore started writing stories.
To my surpass, I like it, and so I have decided to post some of them here.
I hope you like them.

The first story is from our first homework assignment. The task was to think back in our life to a moment that changed our life, then write down the series of events that happened to get a timeframe and then write the story.

The series of events in my case was pretty simple:
I was at a bonfire at the beginning of the semester
thinking about life.
Then a girl started talking to me and surprised me
She asked me "what did you leave behind"

(to be totally honest, the story did not happen exactly the way i write it here, i modified it, to adopt it to the point i wanted to get across...)

What did you leave behind?

While staring at the fire and the coals i think back about last summer and the challenges that the next year is going to bring. It’s a warm September evening and the semester has just started. The last 6 weeks I have worked in an Ayurveda Spa, taking a lot of time to think about my life, my future plans, my goals for this coming semester. I want to get stuff done, accomplish something this year, but more important I want to work on myself, be true to myself and others, say what i really feel and be more present.
Around me there is people talking about their summer experiences, all the adventures they had, all the fun. Its a constant chattering and small-talk that accumulates in my ears until it sound like the screaming hum of a plain taking off. Somewhere close somebody is playing guitar, covers from the 90ties, and a few people join in and sing and play drums.
“hey, I don’t think i have met you” - is pulling me out if my dreams. A phrase that i have heard too many times in the last week and that always leads to mindless small-talk. “Where are you from” - “why did you come here?” - “How do you like it so far?” - the same phrases over and over again.
Still in my thoughts I look up, although not expecting much.
Boom - it hits me - surpise.
Two amazing eyes, dark brown like chocolate look at me, framed by long hair that is black as the night and shines in the moonlight and a smile that is almost overwhelming me with joy and beauty.
“So.. - Sorry - what did you say?” is all i get out.
“I said: I’ve seen you around, but I don’t think i have met you...” - she smiles.
“ Oh, I am Emanuel, nice to meet you; what’s your name?”
We get into the usual small talk. “Where are you from?” - “How do you like it here?” - “Why did you come here?”- What are you studying?” - the same old phrases.
As i start getting bored again and drifting off with my thoughts, she hits me with another surprise.
“What did you leave behind when you came here?” she asks suddenly more serious.
“I am not sure if i understand what you mean..”
“you know, every time we go somewhere, we leave stuff behind, and often we go somewhere just to leave where we were. So... what did YOU leave behind?”
Interesting.
Pictures come to my mind. My old life, my broken relationship that drove me crazy, my life between work, party, alc and drugs - “Work hard - Party hard” was our slogan. My divided family that kept criticising me, wanting me to make something out of my liofe, to take responsibility, and to finally finish my education.
I look at her, while I hear myself saying: “I don’t know”.
“Good job Emanuel”, screams my inner voice, “ so much about being true to myself and others.
Try harder next time!!”

How to make your own Humidifyer

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 18:13:00 +0000

Soooo, this is a short little post about my new humidifyer!

Since you guys, here in the USA always crank up your heating on max as soon as its getting white out there, my room got this little Sahara-breeze to it. Burning hot, fucking dry air coming out of my vents 24/7... crazy...

And since waking up in the morning with a dry throat, my tongue sticking to my teeth, and my nose feeling like a dried out piece of desert is not what i consider a wishful state of being, i wanted to change something...

So, after this initial thought, i went off to Walmart to get one of those things...
Totally happy with my new "rainforrest"-machine i came back home plugged it in, put water in, and started it...
and i was totally happy... for about 5 hours... cause then i wanted to go to bed, and figured out that this machine is wayyyy to loud.
OK, going back to Walmart the next week, bringing it back, getting another one that actually says "extra quiet" on it...
huuiiiii, sooo exiting...
but.... it was exacty the same again... machine way to loud. So annoying that i had to turn it off again, at night... which kind of defeats the purpose, since when i wake up, i again, have my dry throat and the taste of desert in my mouth....

after these disappointing events, i went into deep contemplation. i rethought my living situation and how i could get some humidity into my room. and i had it. SALVATION.

I am just going to make my own humidifier.
well, i guess its hard, cause otherwise everybody would do it... or?!?

NO, its sooooo easy :)
i googled a little and found 2 or 3 ways to make your own "humidifyer"...
like this funky sponge-thing here:

from: http://www.bryankimsey.com/humdifier/index.htm

i went a little further, since i got the vent of my heating in my room, i thought i could just put something wet in front of it, to moisturize the air.
and thats what i did.
what i needed:
a bowl
a towel
two pins.
i put the bowl right in front of my vent, pinned the towel to the wall, so that the end of it is still in the bowl, filled the bowl with water.
The towel soaks up the water, and puts it out in the air.
now i got my FREE RAIN FORREST MACHINE!!

thank you Walmart.

My Conclusion for my marketing paper

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 20:24:00 +0000

Conclusion

Based on these theories, there is only one logical order for successfull marketing to be set up. Taking in account the knowledge about how change gets created (see. Barrett), how modern marketing is defined in a holistic value based way (see Kotler), how specification leads to sustainable success, and how integrity in a company is achieved (see Lederman) it is clear that every marketing strategy has to start with a personal assessment of values, believes and visions. After this is accomplished, the personal values get translated into the company’s vision, mission and core values. Based on this it is necessary to make a decision on what to focus on (product, service, or price) and implement this into the companies DNA, as well as the marketing messages that are sent out.

Steps	Goal	Questions	Exercise
1. Personal values, believes, vision	Personal values, beliefs and visions direct the energy and attention an individual puts into his surroundings. It colors the perception and is the basis of every decision making process.	What are my personal goals in life? What do I stand for? What is important for me? What are my personal strength and weaknesses?	Imagine it´s your 100st birthday. What 3 things do you want the speaker to talk about?
2. Companies vision, mission, values	Translate the personal believes into the Vision of the company. Only if these two are in line, the company can be successful, and the individuals working for it will be satisfied and motivated. This is the DNA of the company, guiding every decision.	What is our core business? What do we want to create in this world? What do we want to be known for? What are our vision, mission, values, and goals? What is our mantra?	1. If your company never existed, the world would be worse off because…? 2. In 1 short sentence, write the companies mantra. (Kawasaki, p. 8)
3. Company and Customer segmentation	The companies DNA is now used for decisions regarding the market segmentation, the discipline of leadership aspired (Operation, Product, Customer)	What do Customers think about our Company? What are the values that our customers care about? Which competitors provide the best value in each of these value dimensions? How do we measure up against our customers on each dimension of value? Why do we fall short of the value leaders in each dimension of value?	Ask a customer: · Tell me 3 reasons you like to do business with us. · What is the one thing we do that our competition doesn´t? · If our company closed tomorrow. What would you miss most? (Ledermann, p45)
4. Company Branding	Aligning the internal processes with the marketing messages sent out.	Are the Vision, Mission and Goals communicated to all stakeholders (Employees, Customers, Shareholders, etc)? Do employees understand specific goals and objectives? Are they held accountable for achieving them?	Step 1: Write a one-paragraph description of your customers experience when using your product or service. Step2: Call up a customer and have him write a one-paragraph description of using your product or service. Step 3: Compare the two descriptions. (Kawasaki, p. 42)

The first step is of special importance for small companies, start-ups and entrepreneurs, since in many cases the business owner equals the company. Therefore it is especially important that his or her personal values are in line with companies values. The other steps have to be based on individual values in order to have a stable foundation. Companies that are in line with the personal values of their leaders and employees will on the long run be more successful.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 19:26:00 +0000

Brand Management

As stated earlier, it is of growing importance that companies have integrated strategies to transport their messages to their customers. Not only do they need to state strong values, visions and missions, but these also need to be communicated on all levels of the organization. As we know, most customers do not believe in marketing messages anymore, they rather trust their networks and own experiences. Therefore it is of highest importance for companies to align every level of the company with the strategic value goals of the company. In his book “Achieve Brand Integrity”, Gregg Lederman shows how this goal can be reached in a company. He states that “90 percent of the time, individuals will judge your company by the experience they or someone they know has with your brand and only 10 percent or less by the marketing messages they´ve heard”. (Lederman, p 21) This shows how important it is to not only “say” the strategy, but also “do” it. The goal is that employees, customers, partners, and the market understand, believe, and experience that the company is who it says it is.

The path of achieving brand integrity includes:

· Who: The desired brand image and work culture leaders and employees want their company to be known for

· What: The desired business results leaders and employees want to achieve

· How: The behaviors and experiences leaders and employees should do

As already stated earlier, customers don’t want sameness, so a company shouldn’t give it to them. Powerful differentiation is essential to being noticed, associated with something important, and remembered. The first step to understanding a company’s point of difference is to look at the work culture and the way employees deliver the brand to customers and colleagues. There are three types of branding required to achieve integrity (and differentiation): Communications, Experience, and Culture. Below are some examples of each:

· Communications: Advertising, coupons and special promotions, Web site, direct mail, public relations, event sponsorships

· Experience: Engaging advertising, interactive Web site, pre-defined customer service guidelines, trade show events, collection and use of customer satisfaction feedback, consistent process for thanking customers

· Culture: Integrating branded employee experiences with job descriptions, recruitment practices, hiring, on-boarding, training, and performance assessments and reviews.

Value Discipline Leadership

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 17:01:00 +0000

Value Discipline Leadership

In line with Kotlers values-based approach to marketing, Micheal Treacy and Fred Wiersema in their book “The Discipline of Market Leaders” introduce the idea of three Value Disciplines that a company can focus on. Which of these is chosen by a company depends on the sort of product or service that they provide, and on the organizational culture that they maintain. These three 'Value Disciplines' are summarized in the chart below:

Value Discipline	Basic Philosophy
Operational excellence	Low or lowest price, hassle free service
Product leadership	Offer products that push performance boundaries
Customer intimacy	Delivering what specific customers want

Treacy and Wiersema say that, by focusing primarily on the one key Value Discipline that suits your business best, you can enjoy robust growth and sustained success. You will be able to predict greater profitability, and become a market leader in your domain.

Operational Excellence: They are not product or service innovators, nor do they cultivate 1:1 relationships. However, they do execute extraordinarily well with guaranteed low price and hassle-free service. Operations are standardized, simplified, tightly controlled and centrally planned, leaving few decisions to the discretion of localized rank-and-file employees. Management systems focus on integrated, reliable, high-speed transactions and compliance to norms. Operationally excellent companies have a culture that abhors waste and rewards efficiency. (Treacy, Wiersema, p47-60)

Product Leadership: Offers the best product and continuously innovates. This type of company continually pushes its products into the realm of the unknown, the untried, and/or the highly desirable. It concentrates on offering customers products or services that expand existing performance boundaries. A product leader’s key proposition to its customers is: We have the BEST product - period. These companies bring in new ideas, develop them quickly and then look for ways to improve them. They have a business structure that is loosely knit, ad hoc, and ever changing to adjust to the many entrepreneurial initiatives and redirections that characterize working in unexplored territory. It has management that measures and rewards new product success, and does not punish the experimentation needed to get there. Therefore, it creates a culture that encourages individual imagination, accomplishment, “out of the box” thinking, and a mindset driven by the desire to innovate and create the future. (Treacy, Wiersema, p81-96)

Customer Intimacy: Focuses on specific customer needs, cultivates relationships, satisfies unique needs and has the best solutions. These organizations build strong interdependent relationships with their customers. To do this one must become an expert in the customer’s business/ life and offer desirable solutions/products. The critical objective is to increase share of your client’s business - and to NEVER lose a client (intelligent Loyal Customer management). A customer-intimate company creates a culture that has its people do whatever it takes to please the customer. It must take the long view by assuring that every initial client transaction leads to a long-term relationship. ( Treacy, Wiersema, p119-137)

To reach leadership in one of these areas, the authors offer a 3 step plan for companies to identify which of the three value disciplines they are in and then should focus on. For this rather difficult process they propose to form a senior management team that works together with outside consultants. However, it can also be done for small companies, to give a general idea of the direction they want to go to. The three phases and the questions for them are:

Phase 1 - Understanding the status quo	Phase 2 - Realistic options	Phase 3 - Detailed designs and hard choices
· What are the dimensions of value that our customers care about? · For each dimension of value, what proportion of customers focus upon it as their primary or dominant decision criterion? · Which competitors provide the best value in each of these value dimensions? · How do we measure up against our customers on each dimension of value? · Why do we fall short of the value leaders in each dimension of value?	· Irrespective of industry, what are the benchmark standards of value performance that will affect customer's expectations? How do firms achieve these standards? · For value leaders, what will be their standards of performance three years from now? · How must the operating models of these value leaders be designed to attain those levels of performance?	· What does the required operating model look like - i.e. what are the design specifications for the core processes, management systems, structure and other elements of the model? · How will the model produce superior value? · What levels of threshold value will the market require in the other value dimensions? How will these be attained? · How large will the potential and captured market be for this value proposition? · What is the business case - including costs, benefits and risks - in pursuing this option? · What are the critical success factors that can make or break this solution? · How will the company make the transition from its current state to this new operating model?

(Treacy, Wiersema, p 165 – 171)

The 3i´s, The Matrix and the 10 Credos

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 18:09:00 +0000

The 3i Model:

Kotler proposes a triangle of Positioning, Differentiation and Branding as the core of Marketing. Brand Identity is about positioning your brand in the minds of the consumers. The positioning should be unique for your brand to be heard and noticed in the cluttered marketplace. It should also be relevant to the rational needs and wants of the consumers.
Brand Image is about acquiring the consumer’s mind share. Your brand value should appeal to consumer’s emotional needs and wants beyond product functionalities and features.
Brand Integrity is about fulfilling what is claimed through the positioning and brand value through solid differentiation. It is about being credible to your promise and establishing the trust of the consumers to your brand. The target of Brand Integrity is the spirit of the consumers.
It is the main message of this triangle: marketing shall not be regarded as telling lies for selling purposes; instead it should be regarded as keeping the promise to your customers. (Kotler, p. 36)

The "Values-based Matrix"

Kotler also introduces a “Value-based Matrix”. He sees a company’s mission, vision and values as the DNA, where the mission expresses the business you are in, the vision is the picture of the desirable future, and the values are considered the standards of behavior. (Kotler, p40, 41) On the other axis are the hearts, minds and spirits of the current and future customers represented. For a company to be successful, it must practice compassion, proof sustainability and show that it creates a difference in the future. Marketing according to Kotler is about clearly defining your unique identity and strengthening it with authentic integrity to build a strong image. (Kotler, p 169)

10 Credos of Value driven Marketing: (Kotler p 170 – 178)

Love your customers, respect your competitors
Win your customers loyalty by giving them great value and touching their emotions and spirits. Your competitors enlarge the whole market, you can learn from them your own strength and weaknesses
Be sensitive to change, be ready to transform
Business landscape keeps changing, if you are not sensitive to that, your business may become obsolete and eventually die.
Guard your name, be clear about who you are
Brand reputation is everything, people tend to purchase the brand that is stronger in their mind and a company must be clear about its position and differentiation.
Customers are diverse; Go first to those who can benefit most from you
Use segmentation, do not try to address everyone, but make your case clear to those who are most ready to buy and benefit from you
Always offer a good package at a fair price
True marketing is fair marketing. Do not sell anything with poor quality or a too high price.
Always make yourself available, spread the good news
Make it easy for customers to find you. Use of information technology, specially the internet is a “must have”.
Get your customers, keep and grow them
Get to know your customer so you have a complete picture of their wants, needs, preferences and behavior.
Whatever your business, it’s a service business
Whatever your product is, you must have a spirit of wanting to help your customers. Serve your customers sincerely and with empathy to create a positive experience for them.
Always refine your business process in terms of quality, cost and delivery
The task of marketing is to improve quality, cost and delivery. Always meet what you promise to customers, suppliers and channel partners.
Gather relevant information, but use wisdom in making your final decision
We have to continuously learn, learn and learn. Knowledge and experience determine the final decision and the “maturity of spirit and clarity of heart” will enable you to use the wisdom that you inherently have to make the best decision possible.

Marketing 3.0 - from Products to Customers to Human Spirits - part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 17:21:00 +0000

In the next days i will put some parts of my marketing paper on my blog.
The first part of it, is already in my last post about the 4 quadrants of change. Based on this model of change, my suggestion is to beginn marketing on the basis of individual visions, missions and values.
In this post I am talking more about personal visioning and new approaches to marketing.

Personal Vision, Mission and Values

To start the process of a successful company, it is most important to be clear about your personal visions, goals and values. Especially for Start-Ups and entrepreneurs this is the most important step, since the person and the company are virtually the same. Only with strong personal values it is possible to survive in this fast changing economy. Not without reason, Guy Kawasaki dedicates the last chapter of his book “The Art of the Start” to the topic of personal integrity and has praise on the cover saying “Focus on what is real and forget the fluff. And please, read the last chapter first” by Pierre Omidyar, the founder of E-Bay. In his book he describes the Yiddish word “mensch” as a term for a person who is ethical, decent and admirable.
The three foundations of “menschhood” are:

· Help many people:
a mensch helps people regardless of whether it´s good for this life or the next.

· Do What´s Right: A mensch does the right thing –not the easy thing, the money-saving thing, or the I-can-get-away-with-it thing. Right is right, and wrong is wrong.

· Pay back society: there are many “currencies” with which you can pay back society. Money is only one of them, others include giving time, expertise, emotional support. A mensch pays back for goodness already received – as opposed to pay forward in expectation of return (Kawasaki, p. 211-214)

This is the foundation of business success in these days. Having high personal ethics is the only way to ensure that your company will reflect high ethics in its everyday life. Personal integrity is the only way to ensure that your company will have integrity even when times are hard, and problems are challenging you.
Therefore the first step for every entrepreneur has to be, to get clear about personal goals and values and align the company with these core principles.

New approaches to marketing

Understanding now, how important it is, that every individual is in line with their own personal values and the companies values and believes, I want to give a brief history of marketing, as shown in Philip Kotlers book Marketing 3.0.

As Marketing 1.0, Kotler describes the product centric marketing in the industrial age. It is about selling basic products for mass markets with the goal of standardizing and up scaling (example: Ford, Model T). Marketing 2.0 is an outcome of the information age. Consumers are well informed, compare products and are very critical. Consumers get segmented and superior products for specific markets get developed. The golden rule is “Customer is King”. Now Marketing 3.0 rises. Instead of treating people simply as customers, marketers approach them as whole human beings with minds, hearts, and spirits. . Customers increasingly want to make the world a better place. They search for companies that address their deepest need for social, economic, and environmental justice in their mission, vision and values. Customers look for functional, emotional and spiritual fulfillment. Companies have bigger mission, vision and values then just serving customers. Marketing 3.0 companies provide answers and hope to increasing poverty, environmental destruction and pandemics and therefore touch consumers on a higher level. (Kotler, p. 3-6)

	Marketing 1.0 Product-centric marketing	Marketing 2.0 Consumer-oriented Marketing	Marketing 3.0 Values-driven Marketing
Objective	Sell products to mass	Satisfy and retain consumers	Make the world a better place
Enabling forces	Industrial Revolution	Information technology	New Wave Technology (connectedness of consumers)
How companies see the market	Mass buyers with physical needs	Smarter Consumers with mind and heart	Whole human with mind, heart and spirit
Key Marketing Concept	Product development	Differentiation	Values
Company marketing guidelines	Product specification	Corporate and product positioning	Corporate mission, vision and values
Value Proposition	Functional	Functional and emotional	Functional, emotional and spiritual
Interaction with customers	One-to-many transaction	One-to-one relationship	Many-to-many collaboration

(Kotler, p. 6)

3 major forces have transformed consumers to be more collaborative, cultural and human spirit-driven. Understanding these, leads to a better understanding of Marketing 3.0:

· The age of participation

· The age of globalization paradox

· The age of creative society

The Age of participation

Since 2000 information technology is in mainstream market and based on that is the rise of “New Wave Technology”, which are technologies that enable connectivity and interactivity of individuals and groups. 3 mayor forces shape these technologies: cheap computers and mobile phones, low-cost internet, open source.
“New Wave technology” allows individuals to express themselves and collaborate with others – people create ideas, entertain them and consume them. One of the leading enablers is social media. There are two broad categories: expressive (blogs, facebook, YouTube, twitter, flickr, etc) and collaborative (Wikipedia, Craigslist, etc). In the new interlinked economy, companies practicing these strategies collaborate with another, with their shareholders, with their partners, employees, consumers and other businesses with similar sets of values and desires.

The age of globalization paradox

Information technology allows for exchange of information through nations, corporations and individuals and transportation technology fosters trade and other exchange in global value chains. Globalization is full of paradoxes:

1. While democracy is finding more global roots, the new, nondemocratic superpower China, grows in power. China proves that capitalism does not require democracy.

2. Globalization calls for integration but does not create equal economies. Many third world countries are worse off than they were.

3. Globalization creates diverse cultures: tribalism and globalism. It creates universal, global cultures, while also strengthening traditional cultures as a counterbalance.

The age of creative Society

Creative, right-brainers work in sectors such as science, art, and professional services. According to Daniel Pink, creativity is the highest level of social development in human civilization. Even thought the numbers are small, their role in society is increasingly dominant. Kotler states that:
“Creative people are, in fact, strong believers in the inverted Maslow pyramid. The definition of spirituality as “the valuing of the nonmaterial aspects of life and intimations of an enduring reality” really finds its relevance in creative society. Scientists and artists often abandon material fulfillment in pursuit of self-actualization. They seek beyond what money can buy. They search for meaning, happiness, and spiritual realization. […] Like creative people, companies should think about their self-actualization beyond material objectives. They must understand what they are and why they are in business.” (Kotler, p 19, 20).

For the Future of Marketing, Kotler sees 3 mayor trends that will help companies to regain the trust of consumers that they have lost over the past 60 years. Consumers now gather in their own communities and co-create their own products and experiences. Kotler predicts 3 cornerstones of future marketing that companies must understand in order to be successful: customers increasingly appreciate cocreation, communitization and character.

Cocreation: the new ways of creating products and experiences through collaboration by companies, consumers, suppliers and channel partners connected in a network of innovation. Companies need to create platforms, allow users to customize the platform and then incorporate the feedback into the platform. Example: Open source, Nike – design your shoe http://nikeid.nike.com/nikeid/index.jsp
Communitization: Technology allows for more connection and the concept of communitization is closely related to tribalism as coined by Seth Godin. Godin argues that consumers want to be connected to other consumers, not to the company. Consumers are either connected to one another (webs), to a leader (hubs) or an idea (pools). They do not exist to serve the business, but the members.
Character: Companies need to develop an authentic DNA that reflects the brands identity. When consumers view a brand, they can and will immediately judge whether it is fake or real. Therefore companies need to always be real and deliver experiences that come up to their claim.

4 Quadrants of Change

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 21:32:00 +0000

Based on Ken Wilbers “Four Quadrant Model” (from: Building a values-driven organization – Richard Barret, 2006) , you can see, how every change has to start from the internal change of individuals. (Based on Ken Wilbur. A Brief History of Everything. New York: Shambala, 1996; p. 71.)

The four Quadrants show the 4 different persepectives that one can have on a system:

Internal, individual—personal values and beliefs (top left quadrant)
External , individual—personal actions and behaviours (top right quadrant)
Internal, collective—cultural values and beliefs (the bottom left)
External, collective—social structures, systems, processes, actions and behaviours (bottom right quadrant). (barret, p 3)

In an organizational setting, the values, beliefs (top left quadrant), and behaviors (top right quadrant) of the leader and the leadership group significantly influence the values and beliefs of the collective (bottom left quadrant), and the behaviors of the collective (bottom right quadrant). In other words, the leaders’ values, beliefs and behaviors significantly influence the culture of the organization. To be even more precise, the culture of an organization is a reflection of the values and beliefs of the present leaders and the institutionalized legacy of the values and beliefs of past leaders as reflected in the structures, systems, processes, policies and procedures of the organization.

Four Conditions must be met, for a whole system to change successfully. These four conditions are:

Personal alignment: There must be an alignment between the values and beliefs of individuals, and their words, actions and behaviors. This is particularly important for the leadership group. It is important that leaders are authentic and walk their talk.
Structural alignment: There must be an alignment between the stated values of the organization, and the behaviors of the organization as they are reflected in the structures, systems, processes, policies, incentives and procedures of the organization. It is important that the values are institutionalized.
Values alignment: There must be an alignment between the personal values of employees and the stated values of the organization. It is important that all employees feel at home in the organization and can bring their whole selves to work.
Mission alignment: There must be an alignment between sense of motivation and purpose of all employees, and the mission and vision of the organization. It is important that every employee, manager and leader has a clear line of sight between the work they do each day and the mission or vision of the organization, so they know how they make a difference. (Barret, p 105 – 115).

So, Go Out and Change Everything!!!

Value Driven Marketing - A Mind Game

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 23:37:00 +0000

A big amount of Start Ups do not make it passed the first four years of their life. Research by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that nearly six in ten businesses shut down within the first four years of operation. http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2005/05/ressum.pdf

Why is that?

Researchers give many reasons for that. Every reasearcher has its own take on it, every business paper its “Top Reasons Why Start Ups Fail”, every author its take on it. One thing is for sure: Business fail. All the time, and it’s always bad when they do. And most of the explanations focus on the business or the market. Poor Execution, no viable market, too much leverage, the wrong place, the wrong idea, the wrong staff.

But I think the most impotant component lies outside of the Company. The question is: Is this the right thing to do for me now?

http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html

http://www.squidoo.com/starup_failures

A mind game:

Its clear, that most of the businesses go out of business, because they do not have enough money. It would be safe to say, that they do not have enough money, because they do not have enough sales. Most of them do not have enough sales, because they do not have enough customers. They have to few customers because they are not good on selling their product. Mostly because they cannot communicate what makes the product special. This is often because the company does not know what makes it special, what is its USP? And my assumption is that this is because the leader, the boss, the entrepreneur is not clear on who he or she is.

Therefore I think successful marketing starts with the entrepreneur knowing who he is, what his or her values are, and where he wants to go with his life. After that, he needs to find out how the company reflects his own values, which values the company needs to have, how it helps him to accomplish what is most important in his own life. After that, the entrepreneur can start thinking about the customers. Which customers think like him, have similar values, and understand what the company stands for.

Who am I as a person?
What are my values, what is my vision, my goals in life?
Who are we as a Company?
What are the companies values? How does it contribute to a better world, what is our vision, mission and goals?
Who is our customer?
What do they value? How do we contribute to their goals?
What is our product/service?
How does our product/service help the customer? How does it make the world a better place

The Egg Laying Wool Milk Pig

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 20:33:00 +0000

The Egg Laying Wool Milk Pig

There is this word in German that literally translates as Egg-laying wool milk pig.
What is it?
The egg laying wool milk pig is an animal that lays eggs, produces wool and milk and has meat to eat.
But it does not exist.
Why?
Because it is not specialized in anything.
It does everything, but nothing really good.

Everybody in Marketing knows that. Marketing 101, Lesson one: define yourself, your product and your customer group. And still, if you walk around and ask small business owners and entrepreneurs what their product is, who their customer is, they say "Everybody". They cannot say "NO", they cannot say "this is not my business", because they are afraid to loose a customer, to loose money, to loose their reputition.

Know who you are
People "know" that you cannot be everything to everybody, and if you try, you will be nothing to nobody. But still. Its the fear of missing out on something, the fear of loosing your customer that drives many companies to do stuff that is not actually their business, and weakens their strategy. Most important for every business is to know who you are, and who you are not. Be honest to yourself and your customers. Be transparent. Let them know what you can do for them, and what you cannot. Your customers will value that and reward it with more trust in you.

Focus
In "The Disciplin of Market Leaders", Treacy and Wiersema define 3 strategies to focus your company on:

Operational Excellence
Product Leadership
Customer Intimacy

None of them is superior to the other, and deciding for one will always make you loose customers in another area. BUT, and thats the big one, by focusing on one of these areas you can become a leader in it and your customers will value you for that, will come back to you for that, and stick with you. Leaders choose one of them - best total cost, best product, best total solution - and build there organization around it. Keep that in mind when you think of your own company

Have Integrity
You are a great webdesigner. Great. Stick with it, if it makes you happy. But don´t start designing posters, just because this one company needs a poster, and you need money.
Be honest to yourself. Is that what you want to do? Is it representing your values, goals, highest exitments in your life. If the answer is "YES" -do it! If it is "NO" - don´t do it.
It sounds simple, but often these are the hardest choices for a company to make, especially when you want to grow and need money (like we all do)

In the end it all comes down to one single thing:
Know what you want and do it!
in your private life - in your workplace - in your company.

Marketing PLan 101

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 20:51:00 +0000

So, I am doing a self directed study now. Actually my first self-directed study ever. And I am getting a little bit nervous on day two already.

I gambled pretty high when I proposed my study, telling my teachers that I already know what we are going to do and that I want to dive deeper and get more out of it.
After two days of research I am still kind of where i started, not really knowing what i should do the next 3 weeks, even though my proposal sounds pretty cool :)

And I already had a bunch of amazing ideas. I got 2 companies that i can use as case studies for my research paper, that fall into the categorie of small and start up (I-Pam and the Bonnell Project). Both of them are really inspiring and are great companies.
I-Pam, a progressive asset management companie that does social responsible investment and value driven direct placement for "awakened human beings" with the goal of creating true wealth (to me at least, this sounds suuper inspiring)
The Bonnell is a social space for young creative people, with a recording studio, gathering space and a stage. Its goal is to foster community by connecting people (i actually do not really too much about it right now, but it is really inspiring too).

The only thing that is missing, and that is pestering me, is to get a plan. I have no plan of what to do, how i can integrate this in my paper...
hm... we will see.
It's gonna be 2 challenging weeks with a lot of opportunities to grow... i bet :)

Here is my proposal, btw:

Proposal for Independent study in MGT425 Marketing

for Emanuel Schachinger

November 8th - November 25th

Marketing is one of my major areas of interest within business. In the past I worked in a Start-Up Advertising Agency (2008-2009) and a Start-Up Social Media Platform (2005-2007). Furthermore I took University level classes in Strategy and Marketing and completed a 1 year training in “Event Management and Marketing”. Therefore I already have a quite deep level of understanding of Marketing. Even though I appreciate the teachings of this class, I feel that I could learn a lot more in a self directed way.

Research:

Since my background is in Start-Ups and small Companies, and the goal of the business department is to focus on Entrepreneurship i will write a paper about:
“Marketing tools for Start-Ups, Entrepreneurs and small Businesses”
for the paper I will use the theory and tools presented in the class book “Essentials of Marketing Management” and show how they can be applied to small businesses. I will furthermore conduct my own research on this topic and present this in my paper.
Furthermore I will give a presentation about my research for the whole class and create a hand out that summarizes my research.

Project:

create a Marketing Plan for EcoFair 2011
I will use the theory and tools presented in the book “Essentials of Marketing Management” to create a business plan for EcoFair 2011. I will apply these to the very specific situation of EcoFair (Non Profit, organized by volunteers, once a year Event)

We will see how much i really get done in these 2 1/2 weeks.

MUM Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 20:09:00 +0000

Just started my new class "Marketing Management" and it already started off with two interesting projects.

For the first one we had one afternoon to create a video that is explaining what "Millennials" are. The assignment was to put it on Youtube and get as many Clicks as possible within two weeks. Therefore we chose a short clip format, with a lot of information, that is presented as engaging as possible. We also got some help from Leon, a Communications and Media student.
I have to say, that I am very proud about the outcome of this very short project!

As for now (after 1 day) we have 107 views, while our concurring group has 19 :D yey :)

Also we created a presentation on Porters 5 Forces of Competition
for those who are interested, here is the link

The 5 Forces of Competition (its a really bad presentation though)

The interesting part for me, in both of the projects was, that it took a very strong leader to get the groups going. Since both projects where very short (1-2 hours class time, ready by next morning) there was quite a bit of time-pressure.
It is interesting how you can influence the group by just stepping up as a strong leader. Even though i still feel that this kind of working has a very unclean energy, cause it tends to alienate group members, it is often important to do it.
It was a great learning process for me, once again, you challenged me MUM. Even though, as most of the time, not with the obvious (the stuff we learn is just very low level, but manipulating group dynamics is fascinating)

Love to all,
click and share the Video, after all, I still want to win :)

Project Abundant Utopia

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 19:43:00 +0000

Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that mimic the relationships found in natural ecologies.

I am in a Permaculture class right now. It is very interesting and helped me a lot to see the world with different eyes. Permaculture, for me, has a lot of implications to business, and the philosophical background can help changing the world.
The three Permaculture principles are:

Care for the earth,
care for people
and fair share

oh, and also, its partially founded by an Austrian (Sepp Holzer)
For our final project we worked on creating a Permaculture-Vision for the Sustainable Living department on the MUM Campus.
It was a really exiting and challenging project, and i posted the jpg´s of the presentation here :)
enjoy...

Here you can find the presentation online
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0ByYubAOWG05QNTQ3ODUxMzItM2FlNy00Y2ZiLWExNmUtZjFlMTM4ODdmNmU3&hl=en

World Cafe - Vishwa Shanti

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 14:00:00 +0000

Inspired by Doug Crouches list of accomplishments, i wanna talk a little about the last process i facilitated.

Our Customer was MUM, or more specifically the Student Life Department headed by Ellen Jones. The space of the Cafe in the main building has been a problem for the last years, since it somehow did not attract enough people despite the fact that it was situated in the center of the community in the mostly frequented are of the campus.
The Idea was to get input from students and other stakeholders about how the Cafe could attract them to come. Therefore we chose the format of a World Cafe Process to get as many ideas out as possible, but also to simply inspire people about the project and connect them with each other.

World Cafe
World Cafe is a participative Meeting design with "an innovative yet simple methodology for hosting conversations about questions that matter." It invites everybody to bring their ideas to the table and through the design of the process connects the different ideas together.
The process taps into the collective Intelligence in a group and harnesses the power of conversations within a group.

We used this process several times before that successfully for bigger meetings (should be more then 15 people) and always had a great outcome.

The biggest challenge in my eyes is, to design the questions beforehand in a way that they are inspiring and "juicy" enough for people to get exited about their own ideas and still keep them on track with the overall theme.

How it works:
The room is set up with tables of 4 people. Each table has a big piece of paper on it and some markers. The process normally has 3 rounds. After every round, 3 of the 4 members move to another table with new members; 1 person stays behind and explains the ideas the previous group had. After 3 rounds, all the groups present back. (This is just a basic design and can be adopted for different groups or wished outcomes)

The Event
We promoted the Event beforehand to students, inviting them to come with the following text through e-mail and facebook:

A vital part of every community is a place where you can get together, have conversation, enjoy life, express your creativity, meet new friends and just enjoy.
The Vishwa Shanti Cafe could be a place like this. World Congress is working together with Student Life and Dean Ellen Jones to reopen the Cafe as a place where students can get together, meet friends, have fun, do work, meet new people, where the community connects back to itself, and life happens.

We want to get as much input as possible to know what you want to see happen in the cafe! What would inspire you to spend your time there? Wat should happen there? What could it look like?
Come and bring your ideas!!

At the Event itself we gave a short overview of how World Cafe works, and then went straight into the process. (One of the cool things about this process is, that you do not have to explain much before you can get started)

For the 3 rounds we had the following questions:
1. What would inspire you to spend your time here? What would make you feel welcome and good here?
2. What should happen here? For example: What do you want to do here? What events would you like to have here? What products or services do you want to see?
3. What would this space look like? How would you design it? Or, what design ideas do you have?

The Outcome
The Event totally inspired everybody who was present. We created 3 charts with about 50 Ideas for the Cafe on them, but also every group created post-it notes with the "most important" ideas. Also the administration representatives got very inspired and want to put more emphasis on the project and the best: one student is taking charge for the project now and is continuing to work on it and already got a work-study position assigned by the administration.
Yeay :)

P.s.:I also wanted to thank the World Congress crew and Steve Cooperman and everybody from the Bonnell Project for the support and help!

EcoFair 2011 -my Inspiration

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 15:15:00 +0000

The last few weeks I have been working with a small team of people to create an inspiring vision for EcoFair 2011.
This has been an awesome learning process for me already, and I think that there is so much more for me to learn during this project!

I feel that this years team has the potential to create an awesome, different, exciting event that blows the standards of the past EcoFairs.

My vision is less of a "speakers-event" more into the Infotainment direction
I want a Circus tent, and Eco-clowns, I want bands that sing about sustainability on self made instruments, I want speakers that don't only speak, but lead by example, I want to educate the next generation on how to be sustainable, I want a big bonfire, and a drum circle, I want to create a space where this dream can become a reality, where modern culture meets ancient wisdom, a interface between past, present and future, I want everybody to have fun, learn something and integrate something new into their life!

I know that thats a lot of "wants" and I am fine if not all of these will be fulfilled, but at least I know where I want to go!

Where do you want to go?

For all of you who are interested: here is more info:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=149005758468117

*EcoFair* 2011
Brainstorming Session

Have you been harboring an exciting idea for Ecofair all year that you can't wait to share?
Do you know an amazing speaker, musician, performer, magician that we must have at this years event?
...Do you want a circus tent, bonfire, art exhibition, dance performances, theater productions and, and..?!

Then you must attend our brainstorming session this coming Tuesday and bring with you all your fresh and funky ideas.

Because this year, we're doing it big!

The Mission?
Ecofair 2011 will inspire us all to actively participate in this presently occurring global shift into sustainability, through relevant education and integrative entertainment. It will be an utter mash-up of creative expression, enlightening exposure of knowledge, and ultimate fun galore, that will do nothing less then connect every attendee of the event, MUM's SL department, the sustainable movement community and the Earth in dynamic global harmony!

The Theme:
Metamorphosis; the journey.

meta·mor·pho·sis
The word "metamorphosis" derives from Greek μεταμόρφωσις, "transformation, transforming"[1], from μετα- (meta-), "change" + μορφή (morphe) "form"
a : change of physical form, structure, or substance especially by supernatural means
b : a striking alteration in appearance, character, or circumstances
(source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/netdict/metamorphosis)

the·jour·ney

Stage, Day 1: The standard, the Caterpillar.
Representing the status-quo, illuminating the context of sustainability, the "why it is necessaries," exposing the caterpillar to the realities of a life with only the perception of dirt.

Stage, Day 2: The efforts, the Chrysalis.
Representing the transformative actions being taken now, illuminating the processes of sustainable action as of today and the problems that have become solutions. The chrysalis is the home we are building in order to transform within but in order to step into the next stage we must lose ourselves utterly and completely [Earth Rave anyone?:D].

Stage, Day 3: The potential, the Butterfly.
Representing an intention, a completely transformed reality that is sustainable on every level, and constantly working towards more and more alignment with the Earth and her processes; the butterfly flies only because the wind blows, the interconnected harmony is realized and applied.

Metamorphosis; the journey represents and _is_ in reality a process that the human society must experience in order to resolve and develop beyond the issues that we face today. This shift will be more then a shift of our physical relationship with the earth, it will be, in addition, an existential shift that forces us to reflect on every aspect of our society from our infrastructures, to our economies, to our spiritual practices.

[Only when the caterpillar is willing to see beyond the inhibited disconnected self and release the final outward layer will the transformation occur.

The transformation changes everything, the innermost structure, complete reinvention, utterly shifting the very physics of life, yet in attaining this rebirth into freedom, the transformation simply uses the tools the caterpillar was born with.
A metaphor, a reality.]

Goals for the Tuesday meeting:
To generate, organize and delegate responsibilities in the areas of Event planning (speakers, workshops, bands, artists, etc....) and Marketing (media, website, fund-raising, etc)

We are accepting volunteers of all levels of interest and availability. Just let us know how much time and energy you are willing to expound and we will find the perfect place for your efforts.

We're looking forward to flying with you!!

Emanuels blog

Socially Responsible Investing (SRI)

Coca Cola seeks "corporate green washer"

Certified B Corps and Benefit Corporations

.prezi-player { width: 550px; } .prezi-player-links { text-align: center; } B corp on Prezi

About B-Corporations

What is a B Corp?

Who sets the standard?

Who is involved in developing or modifying the standard, and by what procedure is the standard developed or modified?

Who are the evaluators and who accredits them?

Legislative Component

Corporate Sustainability – The holy grail of capitalism?

have fun reading :)

Introduction:

The Sustainability Phase Model

Personal Note

Social Justice in the light of Integral Theory and SpIral Dynamics

Ecofair feedback

Ecofair 2011 - summary

Happiness

The last experiment

What did you leave behind

How to make your own Humidifyer

My Conclusion for my marketing paper

Conclusion

Brand Management

Value Discipline Leadership

Value Discipline Leadership

The 3i´s, The Matrix and the 10 Credos

Marketing 3.0 - from Products to Customers to Human Spirits - part 1

Personal Vision, Mission and Values

New approaches to marketing

4 Quadrants of Change

Value Driven Marketing - A Mind Game

The Egg Laying Wool Milk Pig

Marketing PLan 101

Proposal for Independent study in MGT425 Marketing

for Emanuel Schachinger

November 8th - November 25th

Research:

Project:

MUM Marketing

Project Abundant Utopia

World Cafe - Vishwa Shanti

EcoFair 2011 -my Inspiration

B corp on Prezi